Chlamydia pneumoniae has been associated with atherosclerosis in humans. The goal of this dissertation is to evaluate animal models of both C. pneumoniae and atherosclerosis to investigate the pathogenesis of C. pneumoniae ...

Periodontitis occurs in 15% of adults with teeth. Antibiotics are used as an adjunct to standard mechanical therapy for the treatment of periodontitis. As antibiotic use has increased, many bacteria have acquired resistance ...

Septic shock is the result of an overwhelming immune response to bacterial products, or modulins. Lipopolysaccharide is the primary modulin involved in Gram negative sepsis, but an analogous agent from Gram positive bacteria ...

The rhabdovirus infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) is the most significant viral pathogen of salmon and trout in North America. The virus infects wild, hatchery, and farmed fish populations from Alaska to ...

A neutralizing antibody response of sufficient potency, magnitude and duration is considered an important part of a successful HIV vaccine. A better understanding of the factors associated with the development of broadly ...

Kaposi's sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV), the causative agent of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), establishes a characteristic latent infection both in tumor cells in vivo and in cultured cells in vitro. The switch from latency to ...

Chronic Hepatitis C affects an estimated 170 million people worldwide and 4 million in the United States. The pro-inflammatory chemokine CXCL10 is induced by hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection <italic>in vitro</italic> and ...

Abstract Identifying a vaccine that would elicit neutralizing antibodies (Nabs) that prevent HIV-1 infection of host cells is a priority for the HIV-1 research field. Mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV-1 offers a ...

Human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) infection continues to be a major public health problem, with 34 million people infected worldwide. Cell-intrinsic innate immune defenses are essential for the control of HIV-1 infection ...

This dissertation investigates two key innate immune cell subsets, monocytes and NK cells, with regard to their ability to influence HIV transmission and disease progression, including their role in defense against ...

To gain a greater understanding of the overall fitness of IHNV viral variants, this thesis describes the development of a novel in vivo superinfection fitness assay and the application of this assay to the IHNV-<italic>O. ...

In spite of more than three decades of rigorous investigation, there remains no licensed vaccine against HIV-1. A major challenge in developing an effective vaccine is the extensive diversity in HIV-1, varying by as much ...